Lesson Plans

Introduction to Units

High quality service-learning begins with careful identification and analysis of learning goals. Students should participate in engaging, challenging, curriculum that is congruent with state standards or in our case with grade level content expectations.

It is important that teachers are clear with where students are going when using service-learning as an instructional strategy. It is particularly important for student engagement and retention to identify big ideas, essential understandings, generalizations, etc of a learning experience. Teachers using service-learning should strive to be clear about what they want students to KNOW, UNDERSTAND and BE ABLE TO DO as a result of the learning experience.

The service-learning units were created by K-12 teachers during a summer workshop that examined the K-12 Quality Standards for Service-Learning, standard-based curriculum, instruction and formative and summative assessment in the service-learning experience.

A lesson plan template was adapted from the work of Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe in Backward by Design. You find below examples from every grade level K-12 below.